Publications

December 2021
Case

Burning Glass Technologies: From Data to Product

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Klopfenstein

In May 2021, Matt Sigelman, CEO of Burning Glass Technologies, a company that provided labor market analytics for a variety of markets, navigates his company’s transition from data company to product company. Burning Glass originated as a service that used artificial... View Details

December 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Collaboration Wars: Slack vs. Microsoft Teams

By: David B. Yoffie, Kriti Gupta, Mehek Punatar, Poonam Sacheti and Poorvi Vijay

In 2021, Slack was acquired by Salesforce. While widely viewed as the best corporate collaboration and messaging software, Slack was being challenged by Microsoft, which was giving away its competitive product, Microsoft Teams, for free with a subscription to... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Acquisition; Business Model; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Competition; Expansion; Technology Industry

November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Babban Gona: Great Farm

By: Kristin Fabbe, Tarun Khanna, Caroline M. Elkins, Zeke Gillman, Eleni Kyrkopoulou and Thomaz Teodorovicz

In 2020, Babban Gona was one of the world’s largest farming operations with over 140,000 acres of maize farms, an area over ten times as large as Manhattan, and over 80,000 member-farmers in Nigeria. According to the company, the average Nigerian farmer’s net income... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Value Creation; Agribusiness; Capital Budgeting; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Nigeria; Africa

November 2021 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Kermit PPI

By: Kyle Myers, Matt Grennan and Sarah Mehta

Launched in 2011, Kermit PPI helped hospitals save money on expensive orthopedic implants and devices by enabling them to renegotiate their contracts with device manufacturers and better monitor compliance. In 2021, as they look to grow, they are entertaining two... View Details

Keywords: Health; Health Care and Treatment; Strategy; Expansion; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Supply Chain; Supply Chain Management; Contracts; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States; Maryland

Article

Large Banks and Small Firm Lending

By: Vitaly Bord, Victoria Ivashina and Ryan D. Taliaferro

We examine the long-lasting effects of the 2007 real estate price collapse on small business credit supply. Banks affected by the decline in real estate prices systematically contracted their credit to small firms. At the same time, regional and local banks, many of... View Details

Keywords: Small Firms; Credit Supply; Banking Competition; Small Business; Credit; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Competition

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September 2021
Article

Did Technology Contribute to the Housing Boom? Evidence from MERS

By: Stefan Lewellen and Emily Williams

We examine the effects of the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, on mortgage origination volumes and foreclosure rates prior to the Great Recession. MERS was introduced in the late 1990s and significantly reduced the cost and time associated with... View Details

Keywords: Credit Supply; Housing Boom; Financial Innovation; Nonbank Lenders; Mortgages; Credit; Expansion; Information Technology; Outcome or Result

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September 2021
Case

Posse Foundation: Developing Strong Leaders from Diverse Backgrounds

By: John J-H Kim, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley

Founded in 1989, Posse Foundation was a nonprofit organization with a mission of developing future leaders who reflected the U.S.’s rich diversity. The organization ran a selective, localized admissions process in 10 U.S. cities to identify outstanding students with... View Details

September 2021
Case

Worldreader: Helping Readers Build a Better World

By: Marco Bertini, Elie Ofek and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2010, Worldreader was an international nonprofit organization that promoted reading to children around the world. For many years, Worldreader distributed e-readers to under-resourced communities and funded its operations primarily through philanthropic... View Details

August 2021 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Perfect Diary (完美日记)

By: Shunyuan Zhang and Sunil Gupta

Jinfeng (David) Huang founded Yatsen Holding Limited in 2016 and launched the first direct-to-consumer (DTC) cosmetic brand, Perfect Diary, in 2017. Perfect Diary used social influencers or key opinion leaders (KOL) to successfully build brand awareness and to grow... View Details

Keywords: Direct-to-consumer; Social Influencers; Marketing; Digital Marketing; Competitive Strategy; Brands and Branding; Expansion; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Asia

August 2021
Case

Yummy: Delivering Value to Venezuela

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Carla Larangeira

By June 2021, Yummy had become Venezuela’s first and largest food delivery app and last-mile logistics company. In Caracas, the nation’s capital, Yummy held a 55% market share, while operations in other cities had already started to take place, including in three of... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Health Pandemics; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion

2021
Working Paper

Dirty Money: How Banks Influence Financial Crime

By: Joseph Pacelli, Janet Gao, Jan Schneemeier and Yufeng Wu

On September 21st, 2020, a consortium of international journalists leaked nearly 2,500 suspicious activity reports (SAR) obtained from the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, exposing nearly $2 trillion of money laundering activity. The event raises important... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Crime and Corruption; Policy

SSRN

July 2021
Article

Medical Debt in the U.S., 2009–2020

By: Raymond Kluender, Neale Mahoney, Francis Wong and Wesley Yin

Importance: Medical debt is an increasing concern in the US, yet there is limited understanding of the amount and distribution of medical debt, and its association with health care policies.

Objective: To measure the amount of medical debt nationally and by... View Details

Keywords: Debt; Borrowing and Debt; Health Care and Treatment; United States

2021
Working Paper

Studying the U.S.-Based Portfolio Companies of U.S. Impact Investors

By: M. Diane Burton, Gurveen Chadha, Shawn A. Cole, Abhishek Dev, Christina Jarymowycz, Leslie Jeng, Laura Kelley, Josh Lerner, Jaime R. Diaz Palacios, Yue (Cynthia) Xu and T. Robert Zochowski

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the reliance on market-based solutions to social and environmental problems around the world (Barman 2016; Horvath and Powell 2020). The growth of impact investing is a vivid example of this trend and, although there have... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Impact Portfolio Companies; Investment; Social Issues; Environmental Sustainability; Investment Portfolio; Business Ventures; Analytics and Data Science; Performance; United States

2021
Working Paper

Regulatory Approval and Expanded Market Size

By: Benjamin Berger, Amitabh Chandra and Craig Garthwaite

Regulatory review of new medicines is often viewed as a hindrance to innovation by increasing the hurdle to bring products to market. However, a more complete accounting of regulation must also account for its potential market expanding effects through quality... View Details

Keywords: New Medicines; Regulatory Approval; Health Care and Treatment; Research and Development; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Markets; Expansion; Pharmaceutical Industry

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April 2021
Case

Glovo: Expanding Quick Commerce

By: Antonio Moreno and James Barnett

In March 2021, delivery app CEO Oscar Pierre and his team consider strategies to grow Glovo’s quick commerce delivery service and to approach their expansion in Kenya. View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Food; Global Strategy; Operations; Strategy; Distribution Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Web Services Industry; Africa; Kenya; Nairobi; Europe; Spain; Barcelona; Middle East; Central America; South America

April 2021
Case

ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Ashiana Jivraj and Jane Barrow

The case illustrates the application of value-based health care to dental medicine. ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers was a rapidly-growing network of dentist-owned independent implant clinics. The targeted market included 23 million people, 15% of the US adult... View Details

Keywords: Value-based Health Care; Dental Medicine; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Business Strategy; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Focus and Relationships; Health Industry; United States

March 2021 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Hotwire.com: Navigating Through Turbulence

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Manny de Zarraga and Eric Levine

On September 10, 2001, after speaking at an industry conference at New York’s World Trade Center, Hotwire co-founder Spencer Rascoff boarded a flight from Newark to San Francisco. After returning home, Rascoff awoke the next morning to a phone call informing him that... View Details

Keywords: September 11; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Disruption; Decisions; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Growth Management; Digital Platforms; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Air Transportation Industry; Tourism Industry; San Francisco

March 2021 (Revised February 2025)
Teaching Note

Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma

By: Antonio Moreno and Anibha Singh

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-086. In 2018, Nick Molnar, the founder of the Australia-based online payment service Afterpay began its expansion to the U.S. market. The service had gained a loyal following in Australia by enabling customers to pay for online... View Details

March 2021 (Revised December 2021)
Case

Cedar Environmental: Innovation vs. Corruption in Lebanon?

By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case follows Ziad Abi Chaker, founder and CEO of Cedar Environmental, as he weighs options for how to grow the company in the face of growing economic and political instability in Lebanon in 2019.

Founded after the Lebanese civil war, Cedar... View Details